Lewis Howes

“If you’re not hungry, people will not say yes.”

I know you’ve heard the story of me falling into a funk and sleeping on my sister’s couch for 18 months in my early twenties. One thing you probably didn’t know is how I got out of this funk.

I wanted to record a solo round on this topic because it’s one of the most powerful tools I’ve ever used to shift my life — it’s called creating a personal advisory board.

If you haven’t heard of it before, a personal advisory board is a group of people that you build around you to give you wisdom, inspire you, and, most importantly, create accountability.

You may be wondering what the difference is between an advisor and a mentor — the truth is there is a big difference.

A mentor is someone you look up to. You may know them, but you may not. Chances are, today, any mentor you have can answer your questions through resources they’ve created. Maybe it’s a book, a podcast, or online articles.

Board members are people you know much more intimately. It’s also important they have an invested interest in your success.

Ultimately, they have skin in the game when it comes to you.

But it goes beyond that. An advisory board can help you in all aspects of your life. It’s a team for success and they are there to call on throughout the year and see your goals through to the end.

No matter where you are at in your life and business, you need an advisory board. Without it, you’re either going to stay stagnant or move toward your dreams much slower than you could with it.

Learn all about my tips on building the ultimate advisory board, on Episode 661.

Lewis Howes: This is episode number 661 on Building Your Dream Team And Your Personal Advisory Board.

Welcome to The School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin.

Welcome everyone! I am excited about this one, because it’s all about Building A Personal Advisory Board, or what I like to call, The Dream Team, that maybe people don’t even know about, but you are starting to cultivate this dream team of advisers to help you in your personal life, in your career, your business, in anything that you’re looking to achieve greater results with in your life. This is the episode that can be a game changer for you, if you apply it the right way.

Now, for me, I’ve always had mentors or advisers and people that I’ve looked up to, that I’ve gotten advice from, or feedback from, and that coaching and mentorship has always helped guide me. It’s always helped accelerate to get greater results. And I’m going to talk about, in a little bit, the power of advisory boards, but, for me, this is a game changer.

So, I hope you enjoy this one. Take a screenshot of this, let me know, over on Instagram or Twitter, what your favourite part about this episode is, as, I think, it’s going to inspire a lot of you listening. And I’m very excited to hear about your feedback on this and to see the type of personal advisory board that you create as well.

So, again, take a screenshot, send a message over on your Instagram, tag me, let your friends know that you’re listening, and I’m just pumped about this one! So, get ready!

Before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the Fan of the Week! This is from Lynne’s Twin, who said, “I’ve recently gotten into listening to podcasts, and I was browsing through the Spotify podcast when someone talks about greatness, that just immediately drew me in. I immediately started listening, and all the people I follow on social media have great interviews with Lewis.

“Some favourites were Shaun-T and the Bella Twins, and as I’m a graphic designer, sometimes listening to music while I work can get boring. But being able to design while listening to such amazing people, really helps spark that light inside me, to make me the best I want to be. Always stay great, Lewis! Love the podcast, thank you so much! Lindsay.”

So, Lynne’s Twin, you are the Fan of the Week! We’ve got over 3,100 five star reviews over on iTunes. If you haven’t left a review yet, go leave a review right now, let me know what you think, give us feedback, if you’d like to as well. We’re always trying to make this better and more valuable for you.

And, before we dive in to the show, let’s give a shout out to our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by audible.com/greatness. Now, audiobooks are a great sidekick for summer activities, like hiking, hanging out on the beach, running, road tripping and enjoying downtime in the outdoors or in the indoors.

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I want to thank our sponsor today, which is designcrowd.com/greatness. Now, for those that don’t know, design in an important part of my brand, and it’s challenging to find great designers, because a lot of them are very expensive. And, what I found with designcrowd.com/greatness is, they have over half a million designers from around the world to help you with awesome creative ideas, and you get the perfect custom design every single time.

So, I’ll typically, when I launch a course, or something, I’ll put a design up on designcrowd.com/greatness, and I’ll share my idea. I’ll say, “I want a book cover, I want it to look this way, here’s some examples, here’s other covers that I like, now, go.” And then I’ll get, like, ten, twenty, thirty, forty designs back, within the next few days.

And I can give feedback, and I can rate the ones I like, have people make changes, and then, when I’m happy, I pay the winner of the design. and they get paid. It’s a way for them to get leads, new business, get their message out there, and for me to find a great design.

I want you guys to check it out, you get a special $100 VIP offer for our listeners. Simply go to designcrowd.com/greatness when posting a project. Check it out today!

Alright guys! I’m excited about this one, let’s dive in! About All on Building Your Personal Advisory Board.

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Welcome guys, this is another solo episode where I’m going to share about Building A Personal Advisory Board, or The Dream Team for yourself. Now, we did a previous solo episode about a week ago, that people have just been commenting on like crazy, and you guys keep saying you want more from me. So, this is something that I have been doing for over a decade, now.

It’s been about ten years since I started my own personal advisory board, and I remember hearing about this in school. I actually took a leadership class in school back at Principia College, where we talked about building this personal advisory board and I was reminded of this when I interviewed Ed Mylett. We talked about building a personal advisory board.

I remember asking him, actually, I can’t remember if it was during the interview, or when we had lunch, I said to him, “What is something that, if you were me, and my age right now, what is something that I should be doing?” And the first thing he said is, “You’ve got to have a personal advisory team.”

And I said, “Man! That’s interesting you say that, because ten years ago when I got started in my career and in my business, after playing professional football, launching into what I’m doing now,” what I was doing then, “I built this team of personal advisers.”

And I’ll get to that in a second, of who those people were, what they did for me, and how you can do this for yourself. How you can find a personal advisory team, how to ask someone to be on your team, what they can do for you, everything, what you can do for them; and really the power of it.

But when he said this, it reminded me, because I’ve kind of, I haven’t gotten away from having a personal advisory team, because I connect with so many influencers and so many amazing individuals, like I’ve got on The School of Greatness Podcast. But I didn’t have the same structure that I’ve had when it was ten years ago and I had this team.

And, I’ve kind of gotten away from the structure. So, I’ve actually got me reinspired to create the structure again in my life, because I know how much it accelerated my growth, personally, professionally, business, everything. It accelerated it like crazy.

Now, some of you might be saying, “Well, what’s the difference between a personal advisory board team,” you know, I like to call it ‘The Dream Team’, “or having a mentor, or having mentors?” And I think that’s a great question. A lot of people ask me to mentor them all the time, and the challenge is, ten years ago, or fifteen years ago, mentorship was a much bigger thing or something that people talked about more and wanted more.

Because information wasn’t as accessible online, and right now, you can find anyone that you want to mentor you, any famous person or any business executive, that’s done great things that you’re inspired by, you can essentially buy their book, you can watch their interviews online, they’ve got podcasts and videos. The information is out there!

That’s why, when someone emails me and asks me to mentor them, I’m like, “Listen, everything you’re going to ask me, I’ve said on my podcast, or I’ve written in my book. I’ve given specific examples, I’ve talked in detail on it, I give my expert opinion and advice on pretty much everything that you can think of.

“And it may not be exactly specific to you and who you are and the thing you’re trying to do exactly, but the information translates from one place to another, and you can take my information that I share on my podcast and in my books. I cover all of these things.”

So, when someone asks me to mentor them, I say, “Have you read everything in my books? Have you listened to every podcast? Have you watched every video? If so, then e-mail me three questions you have, and if you can stump me, I’m happy to answer them and give you guidance and give you feedback and all those things.”

But most people haven’t gone through everything, and so it’s kind of like, you know, for me, I can’t mentor everyone one-on-one. That’s not scalable for my time, it doesn’t help my vision and my mission, because I’m trying to reach more people, that’s why I create the information on a scalable platform like my podcasts and videos.

But, ten years ago, when I had finished playing professional football, I was broke, on my sister’s couch, had no money, had a surgery, was recovering, and I was trying to figure out, “What am I going to do with my life right now?” And this was pre-lots-of-content-on-the-internet where people were teaching all the things that I was looking for.

And so, early on, I found three advisory board members for my personal life. And this isn’t for my business, this is a personal advisory board for you. If you have a company, you should have a board of advisers as well, for your business, where their whole goal is to support that business in growing and achieving it’s goals.

Now, you need to look at yourself like a business. And you need to think about, “If I could have a Dream Team of advisers, for my personal life, to help me achieve all of my goals, who would they be?” And, for me, early on, I really needed people to help me in a couple of different key things. I’m going to read off some of my mentors that I had early on who I built a personal advisory board team with.

One of them was a guy named Frank Egan, he was a local business leader, still doing great things in Columbus, Ohio, and I heard him speak at a Toastmasters event. And he was such an incredible speaker, the way he was able to captivate the room. The way he was able to tell a story. The way he was able to bring everything together, from the intro, to add humour. He really captivated me.

And I said, “This is the type of guy I want to learn from, in terms of public speaking,” but also, he had written books, he’d built a successful business, and I was, like, “Man! This guy could really help me achieve a lot of things, because I want to be a speaker on stage, I want to write books.”

And he was an expert at networking, which I felt like I was getting good at as well. I said, “This is a guy that I would love to be in his place one day, to achieve the type of results that he’s achieved. So that was one area, and the person I started with.

Another one was Chris Hawker who’s a good friend of mine, now, but he was a part of my personal advisory board team back then. And he’s a famous inventor that’s brought, I think, over 75 products to market. Brilliant designer, namer, idea executioner. And, for me, I had a product at the time, it was called the Cast Comfy, it was a cast cover that covered my entire arm.

It was a sleeve that went over my whole arm and protected the cast from hurting my face or ripping my skin and didn’t make the cast smell. It really brought to life this cast, and made it more fun and rewarding to have on.

And he helped me learn about PR and marketing and branding and design and everything, from an idea, to, “How are we going to execute this to bring it to market, to manufacturing, to everything?” And that was kind of the experience that I wanted, because I thought I wanted to be in that area as well, in my life, and he had achieved certain things that I wanted.

And the next person was a guy by the name of Stuart Jenkins, who was the CEO of my university that I went to, the headmaster at the university, and someone I really connected with. And I would call him for business advice, personal advice, spiritual guidance and counsel, and just get feedback on a lot of different areas of my life.

But they all served a different purpose, to help me get to where I wanted to be, from that point in my life, and they all helped me accelerate, to achieve incredible results, much faster with them than without them. They gave me that crucial wisdom, inspiration, challenge and accountability.

Wisdom, inspiration, challenge and accountability. And I think that’s what we’re all looking for. Without those four key things, it’s hard to have a model of knowing where we want to go.

Now, why I think a personal advisory board is more important than just a single mentor: A single mentor is only going to help you with one thing. A personal advisory board is going to help all areas of your life, to get to the next level.

So, I’m talking about first off, I’m going to give you the breakdown of how to create a personal advisory board team, what it should look like, how to ask for it, and what you should expect from them, and, vice versa, them from you. The first thing is, you want to ask yourself why you want this and what your vision is.

You’ve got to have a very clear vision of the direction you want to go. You can’t just say, “I’m lost. I need help! Can I learn from someone? Because I think they’re inspiring. Can I shadow them? Because I think they’re interesting.”

You’ve got to be clear first, on what you want, and why you want it, with a vision for your life. And each advisory board mentor, team member, needs to fill a specific reason of how they’re going to help you support that vision. If you just say, “Well, I’m just inspired by these individuals, what they’ve created in business or life, and I just want to shadow them,” that’s not enough.

You’ve got to be so clear on, “You know what? I’ve got this product idea and I want to take it to market, and so I’m looking for someone who’s done this, who can help me get it there.” You’ve got to have something already started and ready to grow.

Because you want to find people that can support the vision quickly. Not just, “I need help, can you give me some feedback on my life and the direction for what I want to do, because I don’t know.” That’s not good. You’ve got to figure that out. You can go read my book, go listen to the podcasts, that’s going to help guide you on figuring out your purpose, but once you have that thing you want, that’s when you tap into the personal advisory board.

And this vision can be a one-year vision, three year, five year vision, ten year vision, but you’ve got to have a vision of what you want, at least within a year, hopefully, more like three years. So, early on, I was, like, “I want to be speaking in front of 50,000 people arenas. I want to write a New York Times bestselling book. I want to launch a physical product.”

I had all these visions that I wanted to create for myself, and I was already practicing them, so I was already going to public speaking class every single week, and practicing my skills and perfecting and mastering the skills. I was already building these networking events, and building a company around that.

I had already sourced my own first prototype for a product that I got from China and had manufactured in China, that I’d already shipped over, so I had already taken steps and shown that I was willing to put in the action to get results.

If you don’t have any steps already taken, or if you haven’t shown that you’re putting in the action already, if you’re just, like, “Yeah, I want to speak on stage, but I’ve never spoken on stage before, and I’m scared and I can’t even stand up in front of people,” then you can’t go to Tony Robbins, or some world class speaker, like Mel Robbins, or whoever it may be, Lisa Nichols, and say, “Hey, can you be my personal advisory board member? Because this is something I want, but I have done nothing, myself, to try to master it yet.”

They’re not going to want to work with you. They’re not going to want to say yes. So, you’ve got to already be putting in the work, already be mastering skills, in the process of doing that, to show that you’ve got skin in the game, and that you are hungry.

Because if you’re not hungry, people will not say yes. They won’t want to be on your team. If they don’t see this desire in your eye, and this hunger in your heart, they will not support it. They’ll just be, like, “Nah, this person’s not committed, why should I support them?”

So, you’ve got to be fully committed, fully hungry, and I can tell you what, ten years ago, when I was on my sister’s couch, I was like a freaking staving lion, that hadn’t eaten in six months, right? I was so hungry, thirsty, for knowledge, thirsty to get more results, thirsty to grow. And that’s really the key: you’ve got to be hungry and thirsty, to want to get to that vision, to want to hit those results, in one year, three years, five years.

So, you’ve got to get clear on what your goal is and why you want this personal advisory board, because it’s going to create more structure in that team. The second thing you want to think about is, who is ideal for your Dream Team? Who is an ideal person for your Dream Team?

You want to think about people you already know, and start with them. So, depending what stage you are at in your life, if you’re younger, just getting started, maybe you just finished college, you may not be able to get this huge Dream Team of all-stars who are global icons.

But you can have the all-stars of your local community, the all-star professors from your school, to continue to support you. The all-star business leader in your local city. The all-star something in you region, right? You’ve got to start with what you have access to.

And as you build credibility and build results and build relationships over the years, then you can start building relationships with more people at a different level, right? Maybe a more global level. And that’s what you want to think about, you want to start with what you have and continue to grow with where you’re at.

And, for me, that was just connecting early on with people that I already knew, again, someone from my school, a local person in a business community, and another inventor that I had met through a friend. So these were all people that I knew, or had just met. They weren’t just strangers that I was reaching out to randomly.

Because that’s not the best way to do it. You want to at least meet the person first, one time, before you ask them. You want to have a couple of conversations, usually, before you ask them. And again, this is different than reaching out to a stranger you admire and asking them to mentor you. That’s not what you want to do.

Most people who are busy and successful, aren’t going to mentor some stranger that just e-mails them or calls the randomly and says, “Hey, will you teach me everything you know?” They don’t have the time for that, you’ve got to build some type of relationship.

So, you want to pick the people that inspire you, that scare you, that push you out of your comfort zone, and that you wouldn’t want to let down. The people that inspire you, scare you, push you out of your comfort zone, and that you wouldn’t want to let down. You want to think about that.

So, for me, who’s the person you admire the most, that you’re like, “Man! I would not want to let this person down. I would not want to fall through on what I said I was going to do, because I respect them so much, I’m so inspired by their mission and what they’ve created already, that me letting them down is really letting me down as well.”

And so, it’s going to push you to grow and overcome all those fears and challenges that you’ve ever had. And when you have someone like that in your corner, someone who’s already created what you want, and you’re inspired by them, it gives you more confidence to say, “Man! This person’s in my corner, I know I can do it. If they’re going to put their effort and time into me, then I’ve got to put my effort and time into achieving what I said I’m going to do.” It’s just going to accelerate things so much faster.

And your team will evolve over time. People will come and go, it’s a natural thing. It’s a natural phasing in and out of different members of your advisory team. And you want to think about where you are and where you want to be, in all areas of your life.

Now, the people that I have on my personal advisory team, there is always someone who is a billionaire, or someone who is a mega millionaire, that just understands money, and understands how to make it, how to save it, how to invest it, and the psychology behind money in general.

Money and finances/business/career, is such a huge part of our lives. Thirty, forty percent of our time is work, managing money, paying bills, paying for food, paying for something. Money is such a huge element of our life, that if we aren’t learning from great people on how to continue to grow our ability to manage it, invest it and make money work for us, as opposed to against us, then that’s something that’s always going to hold us back, and we want to master that area of our life.

I’ve got someone in my fitness/nutrition/health/vertical on my personal advisory board, who I can call on and lean on. Luckily in my podcasts I’ve got so many great guests who I can call on and lean on, but I typically like to have one person who’s a doctor or someone that I can always trust and rely on.

I typically always have someone in the spiritual realm. For me, I want to have a spiritual compass, someone who just lives, breathes, spirituality in their life, that I highly respect, that I don’t want to let down. And you could have this for any area of your life that you feel is lacking.

So if this is relationships/love, you could have someone who has just got the ideal marriage, who is just the ideal husband, the ideal wife, that you want to emulate, the ideal parent that you want to emulate, that you can call on and get that guidance and structure and support with.

So, the next thing is all about, how to ask. How do you approach someone to join your personal advisory board team. And here it is, I wrote this out so you could use this and emulate it, if you like. Once you find and identify the person you’re looking for, here’s what you’re going to ask them – you can either ask them in person, I recommend asking in person, to make it more intimate, or you can ask them over the phone or e-mail – you can say this:

“I’ve been inspired by your work/life/mission for years, and you live your life/run your business/run your marriage in a way I’d personally love to run for myself one day/I’d personally love to live for myself one day. And I’m starting a personal advisory board of a few key people I respect and value the most in the world, and I’d love for you to be on it.”

So, it could be simple statement like that, you could tweak it as well, if you want. There’s a couple of things here. First is acknowledging the life they’ve created, the work they’ve created, the business they’ve created, et cetera. It’s acknowledging the person first. So, “I’ve been inspired by your work/your life/your mission/your relationship, for years.” And, “You live your life/you run your business in a way that I’d personally love to do for myself as well.”

So, you’re acknowledging them that you’re inspired by them and they run their life in a way that you want to run your life, that you want to emulate, and model. So, it’s the highest level of acknowledgement. “You’ve done so many incredible things that I want to be like you,” right?

And then the second thing is, “I’m starting this personal advisory board.” It’s like, “I’m starting this team, of a few people I respect the most in the world.” So, again, you are acknowledging them and saying that you respect them the most in the world, which is a good thing to do. You know, you want to really acknowledge the people who you’re looking to have on.

“And I’d love for you to be on it.” Making that request, “I’d love for you to be on it.” Now, that’s the ask. And then they’re going to say, “Well, I’m flattered,” or, “Can you tell me more about it? What is a personal advisory board?” you know, they may not even know.

Then you say, “Well, a personal advisory board is like a business, when they have their advisory board. But, instead of me running my business, and you being on a board with other business mentors, this is you helping guide and structure one area of my life.” And it could be your business, it could be your life, it could be anything, right?

But, “It’s you helping guide one part of my life and my dreams. And I’ve got a big vision, here’s what it is, and the reason I’m interested in having you on, is because you’ve achieved this in some fashion or way.”

And they might say, “Well, what does it entail? Is it going to be a lot of time from me? Is it going to be all this energy from me?”

“No, here’s what it entails: I entails a ten minute, quarterly phone call. Ten minutes, once a quarter, to check in with you on the results I have created based on the challenge or feedback you gave to me.”

So this is important. The advisory board member needs to feel like there is something in the game for him, or her, or them. There needs to be something that is fulfilling. They want to see results; they want to see something fast, they want to know that their wisdom, their guidance, their challenge, their feedback for you is being noticed in a big way.

That’s going to bring fulfilment for me. I’ve got a mastermind called, ‘The Greatness Mastermind’, it’s a group of high-level, seven-figure earning entrepreneurs who are up to a big mission in the world, and when they get big results every month, every quarter, every year, it excites me. It’s like, “Wow! What I’m creating, the value I’m bringing, the feedback, the coaching, it’s working.”

And it validates the results that that personal advisory board member has achieved for themselves. So, we all want to support and give back once we’ve reached this level. A lot of us do, at least, and that’s the key. If you don’t get results every single quarter, shame on you, and if you’re not seeing growth at all, then you’re not ready for an advisory board at this level.

You’ve got to get back to mastering skills, you’ve got to get back to doing something else, and overcoming something else. And you can even say to the advisory board member, “I want this to be fun for you, and not something you think about at all. This has to be zero stress, zero energy, zero obligation for the advisory board member, that it gives them energy and fulfilment, that’s what it’s got to be. It’s got to give them energy and fulfilment.

Otherwise, what’s in it for someone to just give you all this time that you go and take their ideas, or you go and take their feedback, build your life or your business, and they get nothing out of it? There’s no win-win there, so you’ve got to find that win-win experience.

Something you can also add to sweeten the pot is, you can say, “I’m only going to talk to you for ten minutes, once a quarter, on the phone,” or in person, if you’re in the same city, and just sweeten it. Say, “And I’d love to make a donation to your charity or the cause you care about the most, in your name.”

So, if this is someone who is really successful and already wealthy, you offering to pay them a thousand dollars, or a few thousand dollars for the year is really nothing. But you making the gesture to say, “I value what you value, and I’m going to make a donation, in your name, to this charity,” that speaks louder to someone than offering them money for a few ten minute, check-in calls. So, offer to make a donation in their name.

Usually they’ll say, “No, you can just offer $1,000,” or something like that, or whatever, depending on where you’re at financially. Try to offer something. It could be a hundred dollars if you have very little money, you could offer something. So, that’s the third thing.

Then the fourth thing is creating expectations. So, once you get a yes from a personal advisory board member, you want to create expectations. Create clear goals for yourself and this advisory board member, for your life. And create a clear goal every quarter.

So, you get on a ten minute call, or you meet in person first, and you say, “Here’s what I’m looking to create in the next few months. Here’s the goal that I have for this part of my life that you’re advising me on. Do you have a challenge for me? Do you have any exercises for me? Do you have feedback for me? Based on where I’m at, and where I want to be in the next few months.”

Then write down whatever the person says, and it’s your job to follow through on the commitment and the request and the feedback that they’ve given you for the next quarter. And then, after the quarter is up, you can do an e-mail check-in, a phone call check-in, whatever they are comfortable with.

Some of them may say, “Listen, I’m happy to do an e-mail check-in with you once a quarter,” and that’s all you’re going to get. Maybe one call in the beginning of the year, for fifteen minutes. Work with whatever people have and they offer back with you. It doesn’t have to be this perfect structure.

But as long as you can be able to reach out to them and say, “Hey, here’s what I completed in the last couple of months based on what you told me, and these are the results I got. Here’s what I’m planning to do the next three months, do you have any feedback for me?”

That’s it! But if you don’t get results, they’re not going to be as excited to give you feedback, so it’s really an accountability thing where you don’t want to let someone down.

And then, at the end of the year, you can do a check-in and say, “At the beginning of the year, we set out to help me achieve this, you gave me these check-ins, every three months. Here’s what I did achieve,” or maybe, “I fell short a couple of times, but I got these results and here’s where I’m at now.”

And then you can reassess, at the end of the year, if you’d like to continue with that person; if they added value to you, if you felt like it was worth your time to have them on; if it was comfortable for them; if you got the value; if they keep growing in their life, do you want to keep having them on your personal advisory board?

Or, is the year up and it’s a phase out? It’s a, “Thank you so much. I’d love to check in with you every once in a while and support you however I can, but thank you for all you’ve done so far.” You know, you can continue it on, it doesn’t have to be this formal thing, necessarily. Because that’s all part of levelling up.

You know, after the next ten years, my personal advisory board has grown and evolved and shifted and come in and out, and, I think, based on once you achieve something, with that person, and you’ve kind of surpassed what that other person’s achieved – because that’s the goal, to kind of catch that member on your team, to get caught up to them. Now, they may keep growing in their own way, so you may never catch up to them.

But if you do, then, “Okay, maybe I’ve mastered this skill in this part of my life. I don’t need someone for it any more, because I’m already doing it really well. So, now I need to go figure out how to do this part of my life, and I’m going to find someone to add there, and find someone to add there.”

And you typically want three, maybe five, people max, at a time, on your advisory board. Three to five people, max. Because managing ten people’s time all the time is a lot, so three to five people. Keep it close, inspiring people that you really want to have tapped into and have an investment in your success.

You want these people to feel invested in you, and think about you from time to time, maybe they see something they want to invite you to come to an event, or you can meet people and network with people in their inner circle. Maybe they think about you for a project that they’re working on, that they want you involved in, or you get hired for something.

The more that they’re invested in you, the more results, and invested you are in them, the more they will be invested in you. And this personal advisory board, or this Dream Team will become a huge asset.

Again, I was reaffirming this when I was having my conversation with Ed Mylett. I said, “What’s been one of the biggest things for you to help you get this financial success that you’ve had? He was, like, “You know what? A personal advisory board has been a big thing for me.”

And this just reminded me that this is something I did ten years ago, I really had a better structure. Kind of got away with it, because I was meeting so many inspiring people that I was able to kind of tap into a lot of people, but now I’m getting back to figuring out my own personal advisory board, having better structure, to see what results I can get over the next twelve, twenty-four months, and beyond.

So, that’s it! Building Your Personal Advisory Board, or your Dream Team. I want you to leave a comment below, if you’re on the YouTube channel, or post this on Instagram, let me know what you think in a comment on Instagram and telling me the value you got from this, and the areas of your life that you want to grow.

So, what’s the thing that you would love a personal advisory board member in? Is it in finances, or career, or starting a business? Is it in your health, is it in spirituality? Is it in relationships? Is it in something else in your life?

Comment below if you think this would be valuable for you, in your personal life, and the key areas you’re looking to grow in. Other than that, I appreciate you so very much and I hope you enjoyed this!

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My friends, my friends! Again, this can be a game changer if you choose for it to be, by implementing this information, taking action, and getting results. That’s what this is all about, giving you the tools, information and inspiration to now go implement something in your life, and see the results play out over time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, if you’ve done this before, if you’ve built your own personal advisory board, or aka Dream Team. And if you haven’t, go ahead and just send me a direct message on Instagram, let’s go and have a conversation over there, I’m posting tons of content over there right now. It’s my favourite place to hang out.

But share this with your friends, lewishowes.com/661. On the show notes I’ve got more of the stuff that I talked about here, broken down, so you can have access to that at lewishowes.com/661 as well.

A quick shout out to our sponsors today, which is audible./greatness. Again you can start a 30-day trial and your first audiobook is free, when you go to audible.com/greatness or text the word ‘greatness’ to 500-500. Again, audible.com/greatness. I’m telling you guys, I love Audible, I’ve got my books up there, if you want to go get my books, The Mask of Masculinity, if you haven’t read that yet.

We’ve got tons of other authors we’ve had on the podcast who have books on there, like Mark Manson from The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F.*.*.K.; Mel Robbins, The Five Second Rule; all these incredible books are over there, so you can go get your fee book, right now, on a 30-day trial, by going to audible.com/greatness.

Go ahead and check it out right now, audiobooks are the best place to go to really enjoy your time in the summer, to continue learning with the things you love, while doing the things you love.

And, also, designcrowd.com/greatness. Again, great design is important for yourself to stand out as a personal brand. If you’re running a business, if you’ve got a side hustle, if you’re building a website, if you’ve got a logo, any type of graphics you need, you can go to designcrowd.com/greatness, and for a special $100 VIP offer for our listeners, all you’ve got to do is go to that link, submit your design and you’ll get the perfect design every single time. Check it out, designcrowd.com/greatness.

Again, life is about building a team around you, of people you can support, and that they can support you, all on helping each other achieve our dreams. Find that personal advisory board team that you believe will help accelerate the process for you, faster.

Again, follow the examples and the prompts I talk about, don’t just reach out to random strangers, really think about this and make sure you’re meeting with these people in person and offering some type of value for them as well. Otherwise, they’re busy people, and you want to respect their time.

Again, I love you guys so very much!

And you know what time it is: It’s time to go out there and do something great!

Lewis Howes: This is episode number 661 on Building Your Dream Team And Your Personal Advisory Board.

Welcome to The School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin.

Welcome everyone! I am excited about this one, because it’s all about Building A Personal Advisory Board, or what I like to call, The Dream Team, that maybe people don’t even know about, but you are starting to cultivate this dream team of advisers to help you in your personal life, in your career, your business, in anything that you’re looking to achieve greater results with in your life. This is the episode that can be a game changer for you, if you apply it the right way.

Now, for me, I’ve always had mentors or advisers and people that I’ve looked up to, that I’ve gotten advice from, or feedback from, and that coaching and mentorship has always helped guide me. It’s always helped accelerate to get greater results. And I’m going to talk about, in a little bit, the power of advisory boards, but, for me, this is a game changer.

So, I hope you enjoy this one. Take a screenshot of this, let me know, over on Instagram or Twitter, what your favourite part about this episode is, as, I think, it’s going to inspire a lot of you listening. And I’m very excited to hear about your feedback on this and to see the type of personal advisory board that you create as well.

So, again, take a screenshot, send a message over on your Instagram, tag me, let your friends know that you’re listening, and I’m just pumped about this one! So, get ready!

Before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the Fan of the Week! This is from Lynne’s Twin, who said, “I’ve recently gotten into listening to podcasts, and I was browsing through the Spotify podcast when someone talks about greatness, that just immediately drew me in. I immediately started listening, and all the people I follow on social media have great interviews with Lewis.

“Some favourites were Shaun-T and the Bella Twins, and as I’m a graphic designer, sometimes listening to music while I work can get boring. But being able to design while listening to such amazing people, really helps spark that light inside me, to make me the best I want to be. Always stay great, Lewis! Love the podcast, thank you so much! Lindsay.”

So, Lynne’s Twin, you are the Fan of the Week! We’ve got over 3,100 five star reviews over on iTunes. If you haven’t left a review yet, go leave a review right now, let me know what you think, give us feedback, if you’d like to as well. We’re always trying to make this better and more valuable for you.

And, before we dive in to the show, let’s give a shout out to our sponsors. This episode is brought to you by audible.com/greatness. Now, audiobooks are a great sidekick for summer activities, like hiking, hanging out on the beach, running, road tripping and enjoying downtime in the outdoors or in the indoors.

And listening is a better way to binge content you love, while doing things that you love. Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks on the planet. Audible helps you listen to more books by letting you switch seamlessly between devices, picking up exactly where you left off.

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And you can start a 30-day trial for your first audiobook for free, today, by going to audible.com/greatness, or text ‘greatness’ to 500-500. You can do it, with your audiobooks. Go to audible.com/greatness, or text ‘greatness’ to 500-500 to get started.

I want to thank our sponsor today, which is designcrowd.com/greatness. Now, for those that don’t know, design in an important part of my brand, and it’s challenging to find great designers, because a lot of them are very expensive. And, what I found with designcrowd.com/greatness is, they have over half a million designers from around the world to help you with awesome creative ideas, and you get the perfect custom design every single time.

So, I’ll typically, when I launch a course, or something, I’ll put a design up on designcrowd.com/greatness, and I’ll share my idea. I’ll say, “I want a book cover, I want it to look this way, here’s some examples, here’s other covers that I like, now, go.” And then I’ll get, like, ten, twenty, thirty, forty designs back, within the next few days.

And I can give feedback, and I can rate the ones I like, have people make changes, and then, when I’m happy, I pay the winner of the design. and they get paid. It’s a way for them to get leads, new business, get their message out there, and for me to find a great design.

I want you guys to check it out, you get a special $100 VIP offer for our listeners. Simply go to designcrowd.com/greatness when posting a project. Check it out today!

Alright guys! I’m excited about this one, let’s dive in! About All on Building Your Personal Advisory Board.

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Welcome guys, this is another solo episode where I’m going to share about Building A Personal Advisory Board, or The Dream Team for yourself. Now, we did a previous solo episode about a week ago, that people have just been commenting on like crazy, and you guys keep saying you want more from me. So, this is something that I have been doing for over a decade, now.

It’s been about ten years since I started my own personal advisory board, and I remember hearing about this in school. I actually took a leadership class in school back at Principia College, where we talked about building this personal advisory board and I was reminded of this when I interviewed Ed Mylett. We talked about building a personal advisory board.

I remember asking him, actually, I can’t remember if it was during the interview, or when we had lunch, I said to him, “What is something that, if you were me, and my age right now, what is something that I should be doing?” And the first thing he said is, “You’ve got to have a personal advisory team.”

And I said, “Man! That’s interesting you say that, because ten years ago when I got started in my career and in my business, after playing professional football, launching into what I’m doing now,” what I was doing then, “I built this team of personal advisers.”

And I’ll get to that in a second, of who those people were, what they did for me, and how you can do this for yourself. How you can find a personal advisory team, how to ask someone to be on your team, what they can do for you, everything, what you can do for them; and really the power of it.

But when he said this, it reminded me, because I’ve kind of, I haven’t gotten away from having a personal advisory team, because I connect with so many influencers and so many amazing individuals, like I’ve got on The School of Greatness Podcast. But I didn’t have the same structure that I’ve had when it was ten years ago and I had this team.

And, I’ve kind of gotten away from the structure. So, I’ve actually got me reinspired to create the structure again in my life, because I know how much it accelerated my growth, personally, professionally, business, everything. It accelerated it like crazy.

Now, some of you might be saying, “Well, what’s the difference between a personal advisory board team,” you know, I like to call it ‘The Dream Team’, “or having a mentor, or having mentors?” And I think that’s a great question. A lot of people ask me to mentor them all the time, and the challenge is, ten years ago, or fifteen years ago, mentorship was a much bigger thing or something that people talked about more and wanted more.

Because information wasn’t as accessible online, and right now, you can find anyone that you want to mentor you, any famous person or any business executive, that’s done great things that you’re inspired by, you can essentially buy their book, you can watch their interviews online, they’ve got podcasts and videos. The information is out there!

That’s why, when someone emails me and asks me to mentor them, I’m like, “Listen, everything you’re going to ask me, I’ve said on my podcast, or I’ve written in my book. I’ve given specific examples, I’ve talked in detail on it, I give my expert opinion and advice on pretty much everything that you can think of.

“And it may not be exactly specific to you and who you are and the thing you’re trying to do exactly, but the information translates from one place to another, and you can take my information that I share on my podcast and in my books. I cover all of these things.”

So, when someone asks me to mentor them, I say, “Have you read everything in my books? Have you listened to every podcast? Have you watched every video? If so, then e-mail me three questions you have, and if you can stump me, I’m happy to answer them and give you guidance and give you feedback and all those things.”

But most people haven’t gone through everything, and so it’s kind of like, you know, for me, I can’t mentor everyone one-on-one. That’s not scalable for my time, it doesn’t help my vision and my mission, because I’m trying to reach more people, that’s why I create the information on a scalable platform like my podcasts and videos.

But, ten years ago, when I had finished playing professional football, I was broke, on my sister’s couch, had no money, had a surgery, was recovering, and I was trying to figure out, “What am I going to do with my life right now?” And this was pre-lots-of-content-on-the-internet where people were teaching all the things that I was looking for.

And so, early on, I found three advisory board members for my personal life. And this isn’t for my business, this is a personal advisory board for you. If you have a company, you should have a board of advisers as well, for your business, where their whole goal is to support that business in growing and achieving it’s goals.

Now, you need to look at yourself like a business. And you need to think about, “If I could have a Dream Team of advisers, for my personal life, to help me achieve all of my goals, who would they be?” And, for me, early on, I really needed people to help me in a couple of different key things. I’m going to read off some of my mentors that I had early on who I built a personal advisory board team with.

One of them was a guy named Frank Egan, he was a local business leader, still doing great things in Columbus, Ohio, and I heard him speak at a Toastmasters event. And he was such an incredible speaker, the way he was able to captivate the room. The way he was able to tell a story. The way he was able to bring everything together, from the intro, to add humour. He really captivated me.

And I said, “This is the type of guy I want to learn from, in terms of public speaking,” but also, he had written books, he’d built a successful business, and I was, like, “Man! This guy could really help me achieve a lot of things, because I want to be a speaker on stage, I want to write books.”

And he was an expert at networking, which I felt like I was getting good at as well. I said, “This is a guy that I would love to be in his place one day, to achieve the type of results that he’s achieved. So that was one area, and the person I started with.

Another one was Chris Hawker who’s a good friend of mine, now, but he was a part of my personal advisory board team back then. And he’s a famous inventor that’s brought, I think, over 75 products to market. Brilliant designer, namer, idea executioner. And, for me, I had a product at the time, it was called the Cast Comfy, it was a cast cover that covered my entire arm.

It was a sleeve that went over my whole arm and protected the cast from hurting my face or ripping my skin and didn’t make the cast smell. It really brought to life this cast, and made it more fun and rewarding to have on.

And he helped me learn about PR and marketing and branding and design and everything, from an idea, to, “How are we going to execute this to bring it to market, to manufacturing, to everything?” And that was kind of the experience that I wanted, because I thought I wanted to be in that area as well, in my life, and he had achieved certain things that I wanted.

And the next person was a guy by the name of Stuart Jenkins, who was the CEO of my university that I went to, the headmaster at the university, and someone I really connected with. And I would call him for business advice, personal advice, spiritual guidance and counsel, and just get feedback on a lot of different areas of my life.

But they all served a different purpose, to help me get to where I wanted to be, from that point in my life, and they all helped me accelerate, to achieve incredible results, much faster with them than without them. They gave me that crucial wisdom, inspiration, challenge and accountability.

Wisdom, inspiration, challenge and accountability. And I think that’s what we’re all looking for. Without those four key things, it’s hard to have a model of knowing where we want to go.

Now, why I think a personal advisory board is more important than just a single mentor: A single mentor is only going to help you with one thing. A personal advisory board is going to help all areas of your life, to get to the next level.

So, I’m talking about first off, I’m going to give you the breakdown of how to create a personal advisory board team, what it should look like, how to ask for it, and what you should expect from them, and, vice versa, them from you. The first thing is, you want to ask yourself why you want this and what your vision is.

You’ve got to have a very clear vision of the direction you want to go. You can’t just say, “I’m lost. I need help! Can I learn from someone? Because I think they’re inspiring. Can I shadow them? Because I think they’re interesting.”

You’ve got to be clear first, on what you want, and why you want it, with a vision for your life. And each advisory board mentor, team member, needs to fill a specific reason of how they’re going to help you support that vision. If you just say, “Well, I’m just inspired by these individuals, what they’ve created in business or life, and I just want to shadow them,” that’s not enough.

You’ve got to be so clear on, “You know what? I’ve got this product idea and I want to take it to market, and so I’m looking for someone who’s done this, who can help me get it there.” You’ve got to have something already started and ready to grow.

Because you want to find people that can support the vision quickly. Not just, “I need help, can you give me some feedback on my life and the direction for what I want to do, because I don’t know.” That’s not good. You’ve got to figure that out. You can go read my book, go listen to the podcasts, that’s going to help guide you on figuring out your purpose, but once you have that thing you want, that’s when you tap into the personal advisory board.

And this vision can be a one-year vision, three year, five year vision, ten year vision, but you’ve got to have a vision of what you want, at least within a year, hopefully, more like three years. So, early on, I was, like, “I want to be speaking in front of 50,000 people arenas. I want to write a New York Times bestselling book. I want to launch a physical product.”

I had all these visions that I wanted to create for myself, and I was already practicing them, so I was already going to public speaking class every single week, and practicing my skills and perfecting and mastering the skills. I was already building these networking events, and building a company around that.

I had already sourced my own first prototype for a product that I got from China and had manufactured in China, that I’d already shipped over, so I had already taken steps and shown that I was willing to put in the action to get results.

If you don’t have any steps already taken, or if you haven’t shown that you’re putting in the action already, if you’re just, like, “Yeah, I want to speak on stage, but I’ve never spoken on stage before, and I’m scared and I can’t even stand up in front of people,” then you can’t go to Tony Robbins, or some world class speaker, like Mel Robbins, or whoever it may be, Lisa Nichols, and say, “Hey, can you be my personal advisory board member? Because this is something I want, but I have done nothing, myself, to try to master it yet.”

They’re not going to want to work with you. They’re not going to want to say yes. So, you’ve got to already be putting in the work, already be mastering skills, in the process of doing that, to show that you’ve got skin in the game, and that you are hungry.

Because if you’re not hungry, people will not say yes. They won’t want to be on your team. If they don’t see this desire in your eye, and this hunger in your heart, they will not support it. They’ll just be, like, “Nah, this person’s not committed, why should I support them?”

So, you’ve got to be fully committed, fully hungry, and I can tell you what, ten years ago, when I was on my sister’s couch, I was like a freaking staving lion, that hadn’t eaten in six months, right? I was so hungry, thirsty, for knowledge, thirsty to get more results, thirsty to grow. And that’s really the key: you’ve got to be hungry and thirsty, to want to get to that vision, to want to hit those results, in one year, three years, five years.

So, you’ve got to get clear on what your goal is and why you want this personal advisory board, because it’s going to create more structure in that team. The second thing you want to think about is, who is ideal for your Dream Team? Who is an ideal person for your Dream Team?

You want to think about people you already know, and start with them. So, depending what stage you are at in your life, if you’re younger, just getting started, maybe you just finished college, you may not be able to get this huge Dream Team of all-stars who are global icons.

But you can have the all-stars of your local community, the all-star professors from your school, to continue to support you. The all-star business leader in your local city. The all-star something in you region, right? You’ve got to start with what you have access to.

And as you build credibility and build results and build relationships over the years, then you can start building relationships with more people at a different level, right? Maybe a more global level. And that’s what you want to think about, you want to start with what you have and continue to grow with where you’re at.

And, for me, that was just connecting early on with people that I already knew, again, someone from my school, a local person in a business community, and another inventor that I had met through a friend. So these were all people that I knew, or had just met. They weren’t just strangers that I was reaching out to randomly.

Because that’s not the best way to do it. You want to at least meet the person first, one time, before you ask them. You want to have a couple of conversations, usually, before you ask them. And again, this is different than reaching out to a stranger you admire and asking them to mentor you. That’s not what you want to do.

Most people who are busy and successful, aren’t going to mentor some stranger that just e-mails them or calls the randomly and says, “Hey, will you teach me everything you know?” They don’t have the time for that, you’ve got to build some type of relationship.

So, you want to pick the people that inspire you, that scare you, that push you out of your comfort zone, and that you wouldn’t want to let down. The people that inspire you, scare you, push you out of your comfort zone, and that you wouldn’t want to let down. You want to think about that.

So, for me, who’s the person you admire the most, that you’re like, “Man! I would not want to let this person down. I would not want to fall through on what I said I was going to do, because I respect them so much, I’m so inspired by their mission and what they’ve created already, that me letting them down is really letting me down as well.”

And so, it’s going to push you to grow and overcome all those fears and challenges that you’ve ever had. And when you have someone like that in your corner, someone who’s already created what you want, and you’re inspired by them, it gives you more confidence to say, “Man! This person’s in my corner, I know I can do it. If they’re going to put their effort and time into me, then I’ve got to put my effort and time into achieving what I said I’m going to do.” It’s just going to accelerate things so much faster.

And your team will evolve over time. People will come and go, it’s a natural thing. It’s a natural phasing in and out of different members of your advisory team. And you want to think about where you are and where you want to be, in all areas of your life.

Now, the people that I have on my personal advisory team, there is always someone who is a billionaire, or someone who is a mega millionaire, that just understands money, and understands how to make it, how to save it, how to invest it, and the psychology behind money in general.

Money and finances/business/career, is such a huge part of our lives. Thirty, forty percent of our time is work, managing money, paying bills, paying for food, paying for something. Money is such a huge element of our life, that if we aren’t learning from great people on how to continue to grow our ability to manage it, invest it and make money work for us, as opposed to against us, then that’s something that’s always going to hold us back, and we want to master that area of our life.

I’ve got someone in my fitness/nutrition/health/vertical on my personal advisory board, who I can call on and lean on. Luckily in my podcasts I’ve got so many great guests who I can call on and lean on, but I typically like to have one person who’s a doctor or someone that I can always trust and rely on.

I typically always have someone in the spiritual realm. For me, I want to have a spiritual compass, someone who just lives, breathes, spirituality in their life, that I highly respect, that I don’t want to let down. And you could have this for any area of your life that you feel is lacking.

So if this is relationships/love, you could have someone who has just got the ideal marriage, who is just the ideal husband, the ideal wife, that you want to emulate, the ideal parent that you want to emulate, that you can call on and get that guidance and structure and support with.

So, the next thing is all about, how to ask. How do you approach someone to join your personal advisory board team. And here it is, I wrote this out so you could use this and emulate it, if you like. Once you find and identify the person you’re looking for, here’s what you’re going to ask them – you can either ask them in person, I recommend asking in person, to make it more intimate, or you can ask them over the phone or e-mail – you can say this:

“I’ve been inspired by your work/life/mission for years, and you live your life/run your business/run your marriage in a way I’d personally love to run for myself one day/I’d personally love to live for myself one day. And I’m starting a personal advisory board of a few key people I respect and value the most in the world, and I’d love for you to be on it.”

So, it could be simple statement like that, you could tweak it as well, if you want. There’s a couple of things here. First is acknowledging the life they’ve created, the work they’ve created, the business they’ve created, et cetera. It’s acknowledging the person first. So, “I’ve been inspired by your work/your life/your mission/your relationship, for years.” And, “You live your life/you run your business in a way that I’d personally love to do for myself as well.”

So, you’re acknowledging them that you’re inspired by them and they run their life in a way that you want to run your life, that you want to emulate, and model. So, it’s the highest level of acknowledgement. “You’ve done so many incredible things that I want to be like you,” right?

And then the second thing is, “I’m starting this personal advisory board.” It’s like, “I’m starting this team, of a few people I respect the most in the world.” So, again, you are acknowledging them and saying that you respect them the most in the world, which is a good thing to do. You know, you want to really acknowledge the people who you’re looking to have on.

“And I’d love for you to be on it.” Making that request, “I’d love for you to be on it.” Now, that’s the ask. And then they’re going to say, “Well, I’m flattered,” or, “Can you tell me more about it? What is a personal advisory board?” you know, they may not even know.

Then you say, “Well, a personal advisory board is like a business, when they have their advisory board. But, instead of me running my business, and you being on a board with other business mentors, this is you helping guide and structure one area of my life.” And it could be your business, it could be your life, it could be anything, right?

But, “It’s you helping guide one part of my life and my dreams. And I’ve got a big vision, here’s what it is, and the reason I’m interested in having you on, is because you’ve achieved this in some fashion or way.”

And they might say, “Well, what does it entail? Is it going to be a lot of time from me? Is it going to be all this energy from me?”

“No, here’s what it entails: I entails a ten minute, quarterly phone call. Ten minutes, once a quarter, to check in with you on the results I have created based on the challenge or feedback you gave to me.”

So this is important. The advisory board member needs to feel like there is something in the game for him, or her, or them. There needs to be something that is fulfilling. They want to see results; they want to see something fast, they want to know that their wisdom, their guidance, their challenge, their feedback for you is being noticed in a big way.

That’s going to bring fulfilment for me. I’ve got a mastermind called, ‘The Greatness Mastermind’, it’s a group of high-level, seven-figure earning entrepreneurs who are up to a big mission in the world, and when they get big results every month, every quarter, every year, it excites me. It’s like, “Wow! What I’m creating, the value I’m bringing, the feedback, the coaching, it’s working.”

And it validates the results that that personal advisory board member has achieved for themselves. So, we all want to support and give back once we’ve reached this level. A lot of us do, at least, and that’s the key. If you don’t get results every single quarter, shame on you, and if you’re not seeing growth at all, then you’re not ready for an advisory board at this level.

You’ve got to get back to mastering skills, you’ve got to get back to doing something else, and overcoming something else. And you can even say to the advisory board member, “I want this to be fun for you, and not something you think about at all. This has to be zero stress, zero energy, zero obligation for the advisory board member, that it gives them energy and fulfilment, that’s what it’s got to be. It’s got to give them energy and fulfilment.

Otherwise, what’s in it for someone to just give you all this time that you go and take their ideas, or you go and take their feedback, build your life or your business, and they get nothing out of it? There’s no win-win there, so you’ve got to find that win-win experience.

Something you can also add to sweeten the pot is, you can say, “I’m only going to talk to you for ten minutes, once a quarter, on the phone,” or in person, if you’re in the same city, and just sweeten it. Say, “And I’d love to make a donation to your charity or the cause you care about the most, in your name.”

So, if this is someone who is really successful and already wealthy, you offering to pay them a thousand dollars, or a few thousand dollars for the year is really nothing. But you making the gesture to say, “I value what you value, and I’m going to make a donation, in your name, to this charity,” that speaks louder to someone than offering them money for a few ten minute, check-in calls. So, offer to make a donation in their name.

Usually they’ll say, “No, you can just offer $1,000,” or something like that, or whatever, depending on where you’re at financially. Try to offer something. It could be a hundred dollars if you have very little money, you could offer something. So, that’s the third thing.

Then the fourth thing is creating expectations. So, once you get a yes from a personal advisory board member, you want to create expectations. Create clear goals for yourself and this advisory board member, for your life. And create a clear goal every quarter.

So, you get on a ten minute call, or you meet in person first, and you say, “Here’s what I’m looking to create in the next few months. Here’s the goal that I have for this part of my life that you’re advising me on. Do you have a challenge for me? Do you have any exercises for me? Do you have feedback for me? Based on where I’m at, and where I want to be in the next few months.”

Then write down whatever the person says, and it’s your job to follow through on the commitment and the request and the feedback that they’ve given you for the next quarter. And then, after the quarter is up, you can do an e-mail check-in, a phone call check-in, whatever they are comfortable with.

Some of them may say, “Listen, I’m happy to do an e-mail check-in with you once a quarter,” and that’s all you’re going to get. Maybe one call in the beginning of the year, for fifteen minutes. Work with whatever people have and they offer back with you. It doesn’t have to be this perfect structure.

But as long as you can be able to reach out to them and say, “Hey, here’s what I completed in the last couple of months based on what you told me, and these are the results I got. Here’s what I’m planning to do the next three months, do you have any feedback for me?”

That’s it! But if you don’t get results, they’re not going to be as excited to give you feedback, so it’s really an accountability thing where you don’t want to let someone down.

And then, at the end of the year, you can do a check-in and say, “At the beginning of the year, we set out to help me achieve this, you gave me these check-ins, every three months. Here’s what I did achieve,” or maybe, “I fell short a couple of times, but I got these results and here’s where I’m at now.”

And then you can reassess, at the end of the year, if you’d like to continue with that person; if they added value to you, if you felt like it was worth your time to have them on; if it was comfortable for them; if you got the value; if they keep growing in their life, do you want to keep having them on your personal advisory board?

Or, is the year up and it’s a phase out? It’s a, “Thank you so much. I’d love to check in with you every once in a while and support you however I can, but thank you for all you’ve done so far.” You know, you can continue it on, it doesn’t have to be this formal thing, necessarily. Because that’s all part of levelling up.

You know, after the next ten years, my personal advisory board has grown and evolved and shifted and come in and out, and, I think, based on once you achieve something, with that person, and you’ve kind of surpassed what that other person’s achieved – because that’s the goal, to kind of catch that member on your team, to get caught up to them. Now, they may keep growing in their own way, so you may never catch up to them.

But if you do, then, “Okay, maybe I’ve mastered this skill in this part of my life. I don’t need someone for it any more, because I’m already doing it really well. So, now I need to go figure out how to do this part of my life, and I’m going to find someone to add there, and find someone to add there.”

And you typically want three, maybe five, people max, at a time, on your advisory board. Three to five people, max. Because managing ten people’s time all the time is a lot, so three to five people. Keep it close, inspiring people that you really want to have tapped into and have an investment in your success.

You want these people to feel invested in you, and think about you from time to time, maybe they see something they want to invite you to come to an event, or you can meet people and network with people in their inner circle. Maybe they think about you for a project that they’re working on, that they want you involved in, or you get hired for something.

The more that they’re invested in you, the more results, and invested you are in them, the more they will be invested in you. And this personal advisory board, or this Dream Team will become a huge asset.

Again, I was reaffirming this when I was having my conversation with Ed Mylett. I said, “What’s been one of the biggest things for you to help you get this financial success that you’ve had? He was, like, “You know what? A personal advisory board has been a big thing for me.”

And this just reminded me that this is something I did ten years ago, I really had a better structure. Kind of got away with it, because I was meeting so many inspiring people that I was able to kind of tap into a lot of people, but now I’m getting back to figuring out my own personal advisory board, having better structure, to see what results I can get over the next twelve, twenty-four months, and beyond.

So, that’s it! Building Your Personal Advisory Board, or your Dream Team. I want you to leave a comment below, if you’re on the YouTube channel, or post this on Instagram, let me know what you think in a comment on Instagram and telling me the value you got from this, and the areas of your life that you want to grow.

So, what’s the thing that you would love a personal advisory board member in? Is it in finances, or career, or starting a business? Is it in your health, is it in spirituality? Is it in relationships? Is it in something else in your life?

Comment below if you think this would be valuable for you, in your personal life, and the key areas you’re looking to grow in. Other than that, I appreciate you so very much and I hope you enjoyed this!

* * *

My friends, my friends! Again, this can be a game changer if you choose for it to be, by implementing this information, taking action, and getting results. That’s what this is all about, giving you the tools, information and inspiration to now go implement something in your life, and see the results play out over time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, if you’ve done this before, if you’ve built your own personal advisory board, or aka Dream Team. And if you haven’t, go ahead and just send me a direct message on Instagram, let’s go and have a conversation over there, I’m posting tons of content over there right now. It’s my favourite place to hang out.

But share this with your friends, lewishowes.com/661. On the show notes I’ve got more of the stuff that I talked about here, broken down, so you can have access to that at lewishowes.com/661 as well.

A quick shout out to our sponsors today, which is audible./greatness. Again you can start a 30-day trial and your first audiobook is free, when you go to audible.com/greatness or text the word ‘greatness’ to 500-500. Again, audible.com/greatness. I’m telling you guys, I love Audible, I’ve got my books up there, if you want to go get my books, The Mask of Masculinity, if you haven’t read that yet.

We’ve got tons of other authors we’ve had on the podcast who have books on there, like Mark Manson from The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F.*.*.K.; Mel Robbins, The Five Second Rule; all these incredible books are over there, so you can go get your fee book, right now, on a 30-day trial, by going to audible.com/greatness.

Go ahead and check it out right now, audiobooks are the best place to go to really enjoy your time in the summer, to continue learning with the things you love, while doing the things you love.

And, also, designcrowd.com/greatness. Again, great design is important for yourself to stand out as a personal brand. If you’re running a business, if you’ve got a side hustle, if you’re building a website, if you’ve got a logo, any type of graphics you need, you can go to designcrowd.com/greatness, and for a special $100 VIP offer for our listeners, all you’ve got to do is go to that link, submit your design and you’ll get the perfect design every single time. Check it out, designcrowd.com/greatness.

Again, life is about building a team around you, of people you can support, and that they can support you, all on helping each other achieve our dreams. Find that personal advisory board team that you believe will help accelerate the process for you, faster.

Again, follow the examples and the prompts I talk about, don’t just reach out to random strangers, really think about this and make sure you’re meeting with these people in person and offering some type of value for them as well. Otherwise, they’re busy people, and you want to respect their time.

Again, I love you guys so very much!

And you know what time it is: It’s time to go out there and do something great!

Reader Interactions

Reader Interactions

Comments

I came across your pot cast a year ago as I had to make the decision to live.

I’m a Belgian Girl of 27 years old.

You became the base for what my life is becoming. I try to take in everything you are teaching and being dyslectic myself, audible is my favorite teacher!

The mask of masculinity was the first book I bought on there and it is really helping me understand men.

You don’t know this but you have been with me in Barcelona Spain, to Sagrada Familia, the rambles, Barcelonetta,… , Belgium, Portugal, … You are the person who keeps me going to strive to be a better version of myself and the people around me.

As for the podcast that i just listened to. I decided to start my own business in about 6 months, so for now i’m being a sponge, absorbing as much information as I can get my hands on. So this is really helpful for in the future when I am big an tall as you are. I already put down the names of the people that I wanna have on my board in my community.